Puerto Rico Asks For U.s. Agency's Help

Commonwealth Seeks An End To Deadly New Year's Celebrations

January 12, 2004|By MATTHEW HAY BROWN; Courant Staff Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The sun had barely set on 2003 when Jessica Pacheco Calvente and her mother left home on New Year's Eve to get supplies for the celebration to come. But already the shooting had started.

With bullets falling over this Caribbean island, Jessica wouldn't see 2004. At 8:30 p.m., the 10-year-old was struck in the back of the head outside the Quintana Gardens housing complex in the Hato Rey section of San Juan by a round that lodged in her brain.

At her burial last week, an inconsolable Maria Elena Calvente had a simple request for anyone who would listen.

``Please, don't ring out the year anymore with gunfire,'' Jessica's mother said in a message read by a family spokesperson. ``It is carrying away the most precious ones of our generation.''

Despite a broad public-awareness campaign in the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve, with warnings of increased police patrols and stiff penalties for offenders, Jessica became the fourth islander killed by celebratory gunfire in the past five years here. Stray bullets injured at least 23 residents here late Dec. 31 or early Jan. 1.

A baby girl remained hospitalized in stable condition late last week after she was struck in the head while in the arms of her mother at 10:30 p.m. Dec. 31 outside their home in the Rio Piedras section of San Juan.

``What I saw does not have forgiveness from God,'' Gov. Sila M. Calderon said after visiting 4-month-old Saymiopez at the Rio Piedras Medical Center. The hospital would not release updated information Sunday.

Officials in this U.S. commonwealth have turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for assistance. The island Department of Health has exchanged information with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and plans to submit a formal request for an epidemiological study in the coming days.

``This moment has to carry our people to a pause and an intense reflection on why this has happened and what are its roots,'' Calderon said. ``Here there was a strong campaign against discharging firearms, and nonetheless, many people ignored it, with these tragic results.''

Islanders long have celebrated the despedida del ano, or farewell to the year, by shooting into the air. This new year, pistol shots and machine-gun fire rang through the night over San Juan.

The phenomenon isn't unique to Puerto Rico. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities have attempted in recent years to curb the dangerous practice. While injuries and fatalities from celebratory gunfire have been reported throughout the United States, no federal agency keeps comprehensive statistics.

``Very few people know that when you shoot into the air, that bullet comes back at 120 miles per hour,'' said the psychologist Salvador Santiago Negron, president of Carlos Albizu University in San Juan. ``It will go through your skull.''

Santiago, who was named by Calderon last year to a task force on violence in Puerto Rico, said the phenomenon should be approached as a public-health problem, like diseases that once killed islanders.

``Tuberculosis, pertussis, diphtheria: We conquered them because we studied them,'' he said. ``The same thing applies to violence. You have to study the factors that are risk factors. Why do some communities participate and others don't? What are the motivations?''

At the municipal cemetery last week in San Juan, the Rev. Jose M. Vargas praised the decision of Jessica's family to donate her organs to other patients.

``Jessica is alive, because her heart beats in the body of another little girl,'' Vargas said.

Joining her family at the cemetery was Lucy Centeno. Her daughter, 12-year-old Jennifer Perez Centeno, was killed by a stray bullet on New Year's Day 2003 in their hometown of Canovanas.

There have been no arrests in Jessica's shooting. Officials have called on witnesses to turn in those who fired guns into the air during New Year's celebrations. One legislator, Rep. Carlos ``Charlie'' Hernandez Lopez, has spoken of establishing a ``ballistic register'' that would allow police to trace bullets to the guns that fired them.

Calderon called on all sectors of society to confront ``this evil of violence,'' and promised new measures to control it.

``Puerto Rico always has been a peaceful people,'' she said. ``We cannot tolerate nor permit violence to take root in our country.''